


without tenderness,

by nymphacae



Category: RWBY
Genre: Background Relationships, Canon Disabled Character, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - C-PTSD, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Team as Family, gently picks up these girls + qrow and carries them away from everything, if the writers dont know what theyre doing then im granted that luxury too, nothing i make for rwby will ever be canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28968096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymphacae/pseuds/nymphacae
Summary: ruby navigates the trials of nighttime setbacks.because as everyone knows, a leader MUST look after her teammates
Relationships: Blake Belladonna & Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee & Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna/Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee, Qrow Branwen & Ruby Rose
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	without tenderness,

**Author's Note:**

> arrives to rwby ten years late with Hot Takes and starbucks: these girls are good actually!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> also trans ruby rose is referenced a few times throughout this fic bc it's my favorite hc

When Yang wakes up, she breaks things.

The earth-shattering crack of walls under her fists will wake everyone up with weapons drawn. Every assailant present has their own war in their own bodies; when Yang's nightmare erupts into consciousness it's the most physically frightening.

When breaths are gathered, weapons dropped, they watch their friend flailing about helplessly. The flames rolling off her in waves are so hot that there must be a fair distance between herself and her negotiators. Her hair blows wild like fireworks so Ruby squints when she surges forward.

With her prosthesis removed it's easier to restrain her. But she will still kick and let out this awful scream which hurts more than her punches.

'It's not real,' Ruby will shout, or Blake, or Weiss. 'It's okay. You're safe now.'

Yang's body ripples as the mind catches up; her blazing eyes will crease, growing weathered with the sting that comes after violence.

For a terrible moment Yang is swallowed up in a quiet that thrums like electrical wiring. Her curled fist will drop, slowly, testing the waters of her haven.

Then she will give one final heave of her body, folding into a single sob. It tears up her throat on the way out. Her red pupils waver like liquid sunlight.

'You're safe now,' repeats either Weiss or Blake. In their voices: the palest of reprimand, quelled under concern. 'He's gone, we'll protect you.'

After the episode, Yang props herself upright in bed; her stature goes limp as she stares at nothing. She'll ask for her prosthesis and lock horns on the person who must tell her no. Her knuckles curl, uncurl, piloting the leaden nerves beneath.

Ruby sits with her; she's not scared of her barbarity like the others. Her head drops onto her sister's shoulders, and she feels the last bits of her retract by only a hair. Yang holds Ruby's hand with her real one: calloused and familiar and warm. She loves her very much; even if her throat is too scorched so she can't say it, Ruby knows.

(If Yang can't return to sleep, she paces around the quarters of wherever they're staying. Or the woods, where if one follows her they'll find shreds of timber abandoned in her wake. No one tells her to stop — this anger is hers to cherish and it is her weight, alone.)

***

Blake screams louder than anyone has ever heard.

She gets tense, muscles taut for a battle that has stopped happening. Back at Beacon, before the team knew any better, they would reach for her, and she left nasty gashes with the claws that they know, now, why she never cuts.

Occasionally her distorted screams will solidify into words — _get away from me, don't touch me, stop, please, no more_ — and the snapshots Ruby is given twists her insides. The temptation to scoop her up and kiss the nightmares right out of her is so hot it grows ice-cold.

As Blake is literally clawing her way out of this indiscernible hell, the girls give her space. As she's fighting off the invisible handprints impinging her body, the girls make her tea.

Ruby brings her tea — black or green, if it's herbal like her mother's she won't take it — and Blake will not let anyone touch her while her hands are full. Over the course of the night her ears perk back up, twitching madly to investigate the surroundings. She falls forward, exhausted, and someone takes the empty cup from her. The sharp blade which impales Ruby's heart is too brittle to be optimism. It's moreover a terrible flavor of relief.

Her fur simmers down, the terror in her eyes flakes off like rust. She goes quiet in a prickled shame, she won't speak until she wants to — for hours or for days, that is her decision.

Neither Ruby nor Weiss are offended when Yang is the first Blake allows to hug her first, they understand the past interlaced there, the vows they need to exchange: _he's gone, and we're still here._

Ruby says that she is loved. The more she says it the more the clouds in Blake's eyes part.

***

Weiss curls up and begins to weep.

The skilled poise which has been inherited (beaten) into her is hard to dispatch from the image of Weiss Schnee. Her stance is sharply-strung like a bow awaiting an arrow. 

To see her stand kicked out from under her feet, to see her withered up like a starving animal, her body stiff not with conviction but in premature rigor mortis — it’s _terrifying._

Her gaze swims in a fluttering teal pool and when Ruby can't see the bottom it scares her terribly. Still she will bring her into her arms, or Blake will, and gather all of the fragments of Weiss Schnee for her, for when she's ready.

And when she's ready, she rises slowly, revealing a face which is angrily-red and contrasts the porcelain of her features. Her cheeks are stained; she'll wipe at her bruised waterline and practice saying 'thank you'. 

(Before they knew the inner clockwork of the Schnee legacy, she would brusquely sweep their concerns away, masking her tears as either a symptom of allergies or something else of that nature.

'Thank you' is hard-won. It's how she loves.)

Weiss likes to feel pretty after being broken. She'll straighten up much too primly to be genuine, grappling for any product nearby which she can plaster onto her hair or face. Blake likes to paint her nails in the lavender which correlates with her own eyeliner. Weiss will be frozen in time, standing erect like there's a sword pressed against her in menace.

When there's a shower available, she likes to be accompanied. Sometimes Ruby doesn't like the shape of her body that day and declines. Sometimes Blake doesn't want anyone to see her naked. Other times they all join and coagulate in their respective ruins.

Sometimes Weiss fiercely kisses the closest girl that's next to her. Scrabbling for crannies in the canyon. Making sure her pulse is still beating.

***

When Ruby wakes up, she's quiet.

The dreams collect in the swirling nebula of dark ceilings or treetops or stars. She'll gather the puzzle pieces of what caused her to jumpstart awake, noiseless as she can be if there's a warm body pressed against her.

The worst thing about her nightmares is she doesn't _know_ they're nightmares. Not until she wakes up and her heart fills with rot, or she begins to sweat and tremble.

They're always of the same caliber, is the thing.

She's encircled by faceless peers. She studies the backside of their spines and knows them better than their faces by now. They tell her what she is doing wrong. They tell her why they left her — she can't/couldn’t save them (she knows, she knows...). They tell her that they had every right to leave her.

Sometimes the people will walk away, other times they'll be marbled like graves but they reach for her, arresting her infinitely in their cold hands.

The _worst_ — she shivers — are when the figures grow tenfold and their jaws extend, maws dripping with ichor and drool, and they slice her open. She stares at the steel-silver of her own eyes — they are _her own eyes_ — and her mouth is stitched shut as they cut, cut, cut, cut.

If there are very, very bad days and she can foreshadow that it's going to be a very, very bad night, Ruby is excellent at talking herself out of Weiss and Blake's bed. Her smile is rehearsed and pretty, her eyes bright — _don't you worry about me!_ she'll say in different varieties.

The thing is, deep down, she _does_ want them to worry about her. She _needs_ people, she needs things to protect that aren't just herself. At the very core of her is a hot, hollow thing that begs to be filled. When she is alone these tendrils of awful want will emerge from the Thing and will grip her so fiercely.

If she stops being needed, being useful, being _happy_ — then she has no choice but to be blotted out of existence.

It's gotten easier to barricade this disgusting Thing beneath layers and layers of exuberance. If Yang notices then Ruby yields some, giving her sister a mere taste — but if there's a crease in the other's expression that's when she knows to stop.

If Blake notices she's quickly flustered by onslaughts of kisses. If Weiss notices, Ruby will make a joke in turn and watch the eyeroll Weiss gives, the little scoff, bending into a smile. She, also, is susceptible to kisses.

So _that's_ all in accordance.

But when Qrow is there...

She feels little when she goes to Qrow's room with the hidden key card he copied for her. Or when she goes to his tent or guest bed, or wherever he declares his bed for the night.

She tugs on either him or the sheets; if Clover is there then he's kindly dismissed. If her father is there then she'll go back and swallow her tremors within a honey-infused drink, which she vomits up an hour later.

But if Qrow is there, alone, she's offered the space that Qrow leaves unoccupied. 

He doesn't quiz her on the circumstances, nor does he really expel the dreams from his eyes. He just rubs his face and slurs some form of encouragement on his sleep-coated tongue. Then he flips over and Ruby watches his back rise in momentum with his sluggish heart.

In the morning, whether she sleeps or not, she will arrive in three scenarios:

One is often the default: Qrow has carried her back to a bunk with Blake or Weiss; Yang is exempt only because she'll catch on and fuss like mad. Ruby will drift off again to either the scent of cinnamon on the pillowcase or the pungency of flower perfume.

Two: he shakes her awake before the party rouses. He's off to leave for personal endeavors and he doesn't want her to wake up in an empty bed. This doesn't happen as often as it used to.

Three...she wakes up. He comes in with a canned/warm meal and will sit with her. He'll start off with 'sorry, kid', and she stops listening because her ears are thudding with shame. From the clips of what she can gather, he doesn't see her fit to intermingle quite yet. She's still dancing on the knife's edge of instability.

And then he'll use that gods-forbidden word: _worried._

She doesn't know _exactly_ what occurs next. But her throat is thorn-pummeled by the end of it, and her face feels clogged. She'll be either on a bathroom floor or crumpled into some bedsheets. There's blood dripping from either her nose or her eyes; adjusting her vision there's always rubble enclosing them. Bits of debris dig into her knees like nails.

Qrow's arms are buckling her in. It's not like herself when holding her team members — her girls — it's so tight that it's painful. It's to keep her there.

He says it's gonna be okay. And it _will_ be okay. Because in the afternoons, no matter what, she is dressed and fed. She stands tall and checks her reflection in the mirror. She pulls on the areas which will always feel wrong, but this comes as customary. She perfects a smile till it fits snugly into her dimples, to where she thinks 'that's good enough.'

(If her hands are still shaking to where she can't hold the needle, Qrow gives her a substitute of oral estrogen that he safeguards for her, for this reason.)

She washes. Equips her gear. Smooths out her cape. She walks back with an understudy of a smile. She will tell them that she's fine and they'll believe her. Because she's Ruby Rose!

She's always fine.


End file.
